


Unsettled

by gondalsqueen



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Did you think "The Holocrons of Fate" was squicky?, F/M, Yeah so did I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gondalsqueen/pseuds/gondalsqueen
Summary: "Kanan…I gave it to him.” She hadn’t, really—hadn’t handed the holocron to him at swordpoint. She’d just failed to keep Kanan’s secrets. Maul had pulled them out of her head before she’d even prepared to fight for them. Hera didn’t think of herself as weak-willed. She kept their secrets safe—that was her job. And here, locked away in this…this haven… She didn’t completely understand what had happened, but the whole thing left her with a lot of unpleasant thinking to do. Hours after the events of "The Holocrons of Fate," Hera reflects on their day.





	

Kanan carried both holocrons to his cabin. Hera followed him, driven by an uncharacteristic need to keep apologizing.

“Hera.” Kanan usually reserved that shut-it-down tone for Sabine or Ezra. “I’m just glad you’re safe.” He tucked the second holocron, the red pyramid, into the drawer with the one he’d kept hidden through all those bad years. They clattered and refused to rest flat, and Hera wondered if something like that could be damaged.

She winced away from the sound. “Are you sure you want to keep that thing under your bed? It’s not going to…call to you, or whatever it does?” Kanan’s nightmares were bad enough, already.  

“I think it’s all right. Have to keep it somewhere, and better here, where I can keep an eye on it.”

She didn’t take the bait.

“You want to stay here and make sure I get to sleep okay?”

“No.” It slipped out of her mouth, honest and rude.

“Hey—” He turned towards her, really concerned. He couldn’t see anything though, so she didn’t know what difference it made. What was he observing? What could he see in her mind? “Hey— Maul was bound to find it when he came onboard the Ghost.”

“Yeah.” That wasn’t the whole story, though, was it? “But…Kanan…I gave it to him.”

She hadn’t, really—hadn’t handed the holocron to him at swordpoint. She’d just failed to keep Kanan’s secrets. Maul had pulled them out of her head before she’d even prepared to fight for them. Hera didn’t think of herself as weak-willed. She kept their secrets safe—that was her job. And here, locked away in this…this _haven_ … She didn’t completely understand what had happened, but the whole thing left her with a lot of unpleasant thinking to do.

Maybe Kanan could train her to defend herself better next time.

“You’re worried about that?” He was trying to cheer her up, sounding like the old, laughing Kanan again. “I hand-delivered him a Sith artifact for the same reason. Hera, I’m just grateful you kept everyone safe.”

“Yeah. Me too.”  That had been the tradeoff, and she’d known it at the time. Zeb straining the cuffs, wanting to be the one to jump into the line of fire, knowing already that he was going to have to let Hera do it instead. Sabine’s too-quiet voice: “Hera. Don’t.” Her art right there on the wall—he had no right to look at it with his chin in his hand that way.

She’d needed to buy them another five minutes, and then another five after that. Give Maul the holocron, if he could find it. Stay alive. Make certain nothing got taken that couldn’t be recovered. Take a deep breath and keep very, very calm. Go for a dangerous walk.

Kanan nudged the drawer closed with a foot, and the clattering holocrons bumped Hera out of her reverie.

“I’m sorry.” She tried to bite back the apology too late. “They seem a little…unbalanced.”

Kanan considered that. “Somebody told me today that what was known couldn’t be unknown. Guess the same thing goes for the holocrons. I never really thought of that as a problem, before.”

“Yes, you did.”

He grinned just a little. “Yes, I did.” She could see the exhaustion in the lines around his mouth, the desire to take off the mask and rub his eyes and then crawl into bed. But he wasn’t done yet. He wrestled with how to say this last thing. “Look… I know we can’t go back. I can’t see again, Ezra can’t UNsee. But… I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. You should have seen Ezra today.”

“You got to see Ezra today!” she remembered. “Did you like his hair?” And then, to her absolute horror, Hera started crying.

“Hey!“ He caught her shoulders, felt the chill, rubbed her arms as if trying to burn her distress away. Whatever point he’d meant to make about Ezra got lost in his alarm. She hated coopting the conversation like that. “Hera. Please tell me what happened.”

They were all okay. She ought to shake it off. But the experience had been so deeply frightening—and so familiar—the waiting threat out of the corner of her eye, walking ahead as ordered and leaving Maul at her back, knowing that the civilized veneer would crack to psychotic violence (Kanan’s eyes, after all)— She just…couldn’t keep the sick feeling from her throat. Not right now, anyway.

She’d lost her train of thought. She was supposed to pull herself together and do something.

“Hera, tell me. Please.”

“It’s nothing. That was just…close. Close. That guy’s a psychopath.” She rested her forehead against Kanan’s shoulder and let the sobs shake her. Quietly, so nobody on the ship could hear.  She needed to admit to herself that she’d been frightened before she could move on.

And Kanan, today. That hiss of his lightsaber, just as she’d been preparing a back kick that would never work. “I’ll get Ezra.” “I’m coming.” “It’s okay.” Here he was, standing with her again as he always had. Maybe, for just ten minutes or so, she could let herself lean.  

Kanan wrapped his arms around her and squeezed.


End file.
